


(I Don't) Need A Little Breathing Room

by gala_apples



Category: Leverage
Genre: Breathplay, Episode Tag, Established Relationship, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-06
Updated: 2014-01-06
Packaged: 2018-01-07 17:30:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1122533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gala_apples/pseuds/gala_apples
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been a few days since the funeral job, and Hardison is still fucked up from it. Luckily Parker is full of solutions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(I Don't) Need A Little Breathing Room

Leverage is a team of extremes. Hardison knows that. Every time he thinks Nate can’t get trickier, he does. Every time he thinks Eliot can’t yell ‘damn it Hardison’ louder he does. Every time he thinks he can’t be more scared, he is. Still, their last case caused him some pretty unbeatable terror, and it’s still affecting him. 

Hardison’s been out of the coffin for two days now. The Wicketts got caught with their new identities. The Soldados cartel were arrested in Texas. There’s no more wrap-up. It’s time for the team to do something new. But Hardison is beginning to doubt his ability to arrange another case. He’s losing focus. Losing skill. He’s been awake for two days now because he cannot put his head on a pillow without his lungs locking. And after a certain amount of hours logged in front of his laptop his plateau of peak performance will drop, then plummet. Hacker, know thyself.

Finally Hardison conks out in Nate’s dining room. It’s one of the best places for it. His precious machines are in sight. He loves them in all circumstances, but now more than ever. That cellphone saved his life. Also, Nate is upstairs, within shouting distance. That didn’t stop him being kidnapped, but Nate’s presence at the funeral home did make his disappearance quickly noticed. Most importantly there’s 8112 cubic feet of air here. Hardison’s sure of it; he calculated it. He’s been calculating every place he’s entered in the last two days, just in case he gets stuck there.

He wakes up to Eliot shaking him. “Go to bed,” Eliot says in a tone that is usually reserved for someone who’s taken their comm out. No matter the words, the tone says _I’ve said this a dozen times and if you don’t start listening I’m going to cram my foot up your ass._

“Damn it Eliot!” he snaps, peeling his forehead off the black walnut wood table.

Parker drops in out of nowhere to ask Eliot “isn’t that your job to say that?”

“I was tired, fool,” Hardison continues, not that either of them are listening to him. He had a good thing going. Not a comfortable thing, but a workable one.

“Your apartment that we ‘know about’,” Parker makes air quotes, “is down the hall. Your safehouse is-”

“Parker!” Eliot growls. Hardison’s not sure if that means Eliot doesn’t know where Hardison could go to ground and he’s respecting his privacy, or he does and he’s faking it. Hardison could probably figure it out if he wasn’t so freakin tired.

“You haven’t slept.” It’s a statement, not a question. Hardison shrugs an equally useless answer. “Change your silk sheets.”

He knows what Eliot’s saying. The texture _was_ horrifically similar to the coffin’s padding when he tried sleeping two days ago. But switching them out for the flannel set Eliot likes or the cotton set Parker likes is not the solution. “Didn’t help.”

“Lay on Eliot.”

“What?”

“He’s lumpy,” Parker says, slapping Eliot’s muscled stomach. “And he smells like sweat and food, not coffin perfume.”

“Uh, I don’t think-” Hardison cuts off as Eliot walks backwards to the couch and throws himself over the back side. An invitation if there ever was one.

“And I can rub your head all night. You can’t feel scared and alone if I’m petting you.”

“I’m so tired,” Hardison complains. If he was a little kid it would be whining, but he’s not, so it’s...not. There’s something wrong with what they’re suggesting. He knows there is. He just can’t see the problem through the exhaustion. He would definitely be useless at pulling together a job right now.

“Damn it Hardison! Let us take care of you!” Hardison doesn’t have to see Eliot to know his body language reads as frustrated affection. At this point in the relationship that’s pretty much Eliot’s standard emotion.

He thinks about it for a second, muzzily, before he heaves himself up from the table with both hands. Maybe it’s weird, but Hardison really does want to use his lovers as his furniture for the rest of the night. Or maybe until pillows stop seeming so scary, but there’s no way he’ll say that out loud. He circles the couch and flops down on top of Eliot as gently as possible. Just because Eliot can take an elbow to the ribs without blinking doesn’t mean Hardison _wants_ to do that to him. It would be a pretty ungrateful move, and right now he’s got a lot of gratitude under the exhaustion. Parker joins them a moment later, soundlessly as usual. Hardison has about a second to feel Parker’s fingers rub his scalp before he drifts away.

Hardison wakes up hours later, clear headed. Also completely stunned, because Eliot and Parker are both still on the couch with him. Sure he’s gone from laying directly on top of Eliot to being spooned, tucked into Eliot’s chest so Eliot can watch football on mute. Sure Parker isn’t touching him anymore, she’s busy polishing the metal bits of her gear. So what? It doesn’t bother Hardison in the least that he’s no longer the centre of their attention. He would have put one in a million odds on them staying with him the whole time. He long ago got used to falling asleep with both of them and being woken up half a dozen times in the night with their comings and goings, both Parker and Eliot being multiphasic sleepers with little patience for lounging in bed when not actually asleep. But they did. They _both_ stayed to make sure he’d sleep safely. You can’t get a more glowing proof of love than that. Besides, the minute they notice he’s awake he becomes the centre again. And because they’re Parker and Eliot that’s pretty much instantly.

“Feel better now?” Parker asks as she pokes him in the forehead.

Eliot answers for him, voice quiet. “He’s not trembling from exhaustion anymore. That doesn’t mean anything though. You had nightmares.”

“How’d you know?” By the time he’d been adopted by Nana Hardison had been conditioned out of waking up crying or screaming. There’s no way he whimpered.

“You have a very distinctive tension in your body.”

Apropos of nothing, Parker says “Eliot, you should choke Hardison out.”

“Uh, hey? Just because I slept doesn’t mean I’m ready to start judo or whatever again yet.” Honestly he’d rather not do it ever. Whenever Eliot tries to teach him self defense Hardison ends up getting hurt. Hell, whenever Eliot teaches Parker or Sophie self defense Hardison gets hurt. He still hasn’t forgotten getting punched in the throat. 

“Not like that, silly. I got over my fears of the dark by locking myself in a trunk. You should get over your fear of not having air by Eliot choking you.”

“Uh,” is Eliot’s wise contribution.

“It’s a good time to do it, now that no one’s trying to kill you.”

Hardison stares at her, trying to parse her logic, but it’s impossible. “Eliot would be trying to kill me!”

“Nah,” Parker says casually, flapping her hand. “If Eliot does it right it’s totally sexy. That way the next time you’re gasping you get a better sense memory and you don’t have a panic attack.”

“Does anyone remember that during the boxing job you did indeed choke me until I was gasping and begging you to stop, and did you? I will refresh your memory, no you did not.”

Parker -who is suddenly on the floor, without seeming to have crossed the distance in between- pats his boxers covered dick reassuringly. Hardison doesn’t remember taking his pants off before he fell asleep on Eliot. No doubt Parker took them. She could steal the spots off a sleeping ladybug. His dick is a damn traitor and is already half excited by this all. “That’s why Eliot’s doing it. He knows when to stop. I bet he won’t even let you pass out. Will you Eliot?”

“I am not considering this. I am not, and nobody better say I am. But if I was, would you even be into it?” Hardison angles his neck to try to see Eliot’s face. He’s mostly got chin and nostrils.

“We’ve had this conversation before,” Eliot replies.

Hardison’s first thought is to point out no, they absolutely have not. When they first started dating he was proactive. He made them both a USB with a kinks and acts spreadsheet on it so they could compile thrice green or yellow highlighted activities, and know to avoid all red activities. Four days later, when neither of them had filled it in and emailed him, Hardison had killed trees and printed off copies. Parker at least took the papers, though she’s never looked at them. Eliot gave the sheets back after a glance, saying only ‘just try to surprise me’, implying that he’s done everything on the list. So no, there’s been exactly zero conversation, and Hardison’s first impulse is always to quibble. But his second is to think about going for it. Not for the therapeutic reasons Parker’s suggesting. More because he’s seen a porno or two about it -he’s seen a porno or two about everything- and it’s looked interesting. He’d tagged it yellow for ‘maybe, needs more discussion’ on his own spreadsheet.

“You’ll actually stop?”

“Of course,” Eliot answers, gruff as always. “But your flailing can’t be your safe gesture because you flail constantly.”

Parker’s back before Hardison even realises she’s gone. She jams something against his hand and Hardison takes it automatically before looking down to see what it is. That’s the kind of influence his crew has on him these days. He’s holding Eliot’s keys. It only takes a fraction of a second to get it, thanks to the more realistic amatuer BDSM porn he’s watched. “I will jangle these like a mofo if you need to stop.”

“Good.”

Hardison’s expecting to be hauled into his feet. That’s the way both choking porns went; the receiver being pushed against the wall, the aggressor jamming his forearm against the receiver's neck. And then handjobs for all, as the receiver's face slowly turned red. His expectations are utterly thrown out the window over the next few minutes. Eliot doesn’t so much as roll them over so he’s on top. Instead he shifts up the couch slightly, the back of Hardison’s t-shirt hitching up with him. Once Eliot’s better situated he curls his left arm around Hardison’s throat. 

The limb starts as just a presence. Well built muscle, fine hair, more than a couple of scars, nothing Hardison hasn’t felt before. Then Eliot starts to put the pressure on. His tightening grip easily impedes Hardison’s airway, making each breath more difficult. Soon he’s running out of air. It isn’t a thing like being buried alive. Hardison can see the whole vast room when his eyes blink open. The dimmed lights are still brighter than working by cellphone. Eliot’s behind him and Parker’s cross legged in front of him, both solid physical connections. Physical proximity is more than he gets during half the cons, never mind when he was buried. 

Even though Hardison can’t breathe, he doesn’t feel scared. He knows he won’t die. Neither of them would allow it. Eliot might be the responsible one, but Parker’s there when it counts. And then Parker reaches out and pulls down the wide elastic of his boxers so she can grab his dick. At that point fear stops being even an option, other basic feelings surging into play. 

As his oxygen drops and his dick starts leaking Hardison begins to buck. Apparently Eliot’s right and he _is_ always moving, body and brain. He only tightens his grip on the keys, their jagged edges biting into his palm. If they make a sound Parker and Eliot will stop. If they stop then he just might have to weep. And then Eliot stops anyway.

“Whhhhy?” Hardison asks after his first involuntary gasp. “I thought we had a good thing going!”

“Passing out isn’t sexy, Hardison. Take a few deep breaths, then we’ll start again.” 

“At least Parker didn’t stop,” he grumbles.

“Oh, should I have?”

“No!” He protests, but it’s too late. She does.

It’s a small eternity until Eliot’s arm locks down again and Parker resumes his handjob. Hardison would sigh in bliss, except for the no air intake thing. He settles for just enjoying it the way Tony Stark loves robots, intensely and emphatically.

Next thing he knows Parker is squealing. She dives flat on the floor, out of the way, and complains from there. “I thought we had a comeshot warning rule!”

Hardison does his best to explains himself around heaving for breath. “I couldn’t talk. And if I’d jangled Eliot would have stopped.”

Parker, now safely halfway across the room, looks down at the splattered floor and winces. “Next time it’s one hand of keys for a safety stop, and another hand of keys for ‘I’m about to be icky’.”

Hardison nods, shit eating grin spreading over his face. “I totally consent to a next time.”


End file.
